Solipsis: Escape from the Comatorium (36 page)

“
I
love you,” Renee says, a tear drips down her cheek, soaking
into his t-shirt.

Patrick
strains his neck, making eye contact with her. “I love you
too.” His eyes glimmer with tears. A strange twinkling of light
moves across his face. His glimmering eyes become a set of lights on
the bottom of a helicopter's runners, refracted through ten meters of
dark seawater. The twinkling points of light are bubbles streaming
from her animatronic body, surging toward the surface. Water is
filling the empty space between her fake skin and the body
underneath. She's sinking slowly, but as the bubbles stream away, her
buoyancy reduces steadily.

Feet
and arms flail in the surf above her. Paul is treading water. The
runners approach him, he's trying to climb aboard the chopper.

Renee
kicks her feet, and tears at the water with her arms. Her gun is
gone. On her three good limbs she fights toward the surface. Her
mechanical joints strain, her limbs are warped by the torque she's
generating, bowing like tree limbs, and yet it's not enough, she
begins sinking, despite her efforts.

Renee
fights harder, but is unable to slow her descent. Her foot slams
against something hard. She has hit the side of the pyramid. At this
depth, the walls are made of steel and not glass. She slips against
the angled surface, continuing to descend into the dark ocean. She
reaches with her one good hand for anything to cling on to. The steel
scrapes past her desperate fingers. The abrupt end of the pyramid
looms beneath her. Beyond it, several kilometers of nothing.

She
slides faster, heading for the drop-off. Her hand skitters across the
steel, searching for any little thing to grasp, but finding none. She
feels her legs slide past the end of the pyramid, falling free. She
feels the lip at the edge of the station move up her thighs, past her
stomach, digging harder into her skin. She turns her face away and
reaches for the edge, getting a hold with her weak hand. fingers
pinch with all the grip they can muster. Her hand gets a firm hold,
but she has to hold on as she continues to fall. Her arm stretches
over her head, and all at once the weight over her watered down frame
pulls her arm taut, straining her elbow which twists and lets out an
inhuman cracking sound.

Her
descent is arrested. She pulls with her one good arm, trying to raise
her heavy sinking body back up to the angled surface. Renee feels a
hole in the pit of her stomach, a deep aching as she fights for every
centimeter. It's an intense hunger, but she has no stomach, this
feeling is completely illusory. She has never felt so hungry in her
life, not even in the midst of her hunger strike. Hunger indicated
that the animatron batteries are low. Intense hunger like this
indicates impending shut-down.

Renee
finally pulls herself up, clawing from one seam to another, she lifts
herself up. Her feet find small ledges to apply pressure, her hand
searches for the tiny protruding seams in the surface.

The
blinking light of the helicopter's runner dips into the water amidst
a large wave. Paul seems to emerge partially from the water, but his
feet kick, stirring up bubbles.

Renee
picks up momentum, moving up the surface. When Paul is directly
above, she leaps off of the surface, sending her skyward. She reaches
with her good right arm for his kicking foot, missing. She starts to
fall back toward the depths, needing to claw her way upward again
with a few more strokes. The flailing feet seem to rise out of the
water. Renee reaches again, grasping the solid boney ankle joint of
his right foot. She digs her fingers in with all the hydraulic grip
she can muster.

Renee's
face breaks through the surface. Paul hangs onto the runner, severely
weighed down by Renee's flooding body. His grip loosens. A wave
thrusts them beneath water for an instant before they emerge once
more. As Renee emerges, her effective weight grows, until at
hip-high, Paul's grip fails and they fall back into the sea.

Paul
kicks his foot hard, trying to escape her grip as they tumble in the
surf. A wave thrusts them up onto the glass wall of the pyramid. The
water recedes, leaving them lying face down on the glass. The chopper
approaches, its blades seem to be barely above their heads and not
far away from the glass. Paul holds onto the blade computer
containing Renee's copy. Renee tries to stand but her flooded body is
too heavy. Water streams out of her at every little crack or seam.
She's lighter every second. Paul manages to half-way stand up on the
slanted surface, with Renee still clinging to his right foot. The
chopper approaches with the open side of the cabin facing them. Paul
tosses the blade computer toward the helicopter. The blade flies
through the open door, landing inside the chopper.

Renee
finally gets to her feet, grabbing Paul's soaked shirt by the collar,
pressing her face against his. The chopper continues to hover.

“
Go!”
Paul shouts, waving his arm at the helicopter pilot to leave him
behind. “Go!”

Renee
sees the recognition in the pilot's eyes, he's going to leave his
friend behind. The blades zoom only a meter or so directly over head.
The pilot turns away, about to fly off, leaving Paul behind.

Renee
acts fast. She bends her knees, grabs Paul, yanking him over her
shoulder. She jams her feet down with immense mechanical power,
leaping into the air with Paul pinned to her shoulder. She plants her
hand into his sternum and shoves him skyward with all the power she
can muster.

Paul
lumbers into the air, flailing in space, he meets the rotor blade
face-first. Paul's head and torso are turned into a mist before his
heart stops. The damaged rotor suddenly alters the forces it
produces. The pilot attempts to correct, but can't prevent the rotor
from meandering into the glass wall, completely destroying the
rotors. The thick glass holds up, but is cracked severely.

The
wrecked chopper hits the water. Renee slides into the water next to
the chopper. She swims into the open cabin, looking for the blade.
The chopper sinks into the wall of the pyramid and begins a sideways
slide. Renee finds the blade, pinned underneath a seat. She tears it
out from under the seat and heads for the exit. She emerges from the
chopper as it continues its slide down the wall. She plants her feet
onto a seam and arrests her fall. She holds onto the blade with her
good arm. The helicopter continues its slide down the angled wall.
She watches as the pilot tries to escape from the chopper, but it
disappears over the ledge, sinking into the deep.

The
blade computer slides into its docking port. A final shove locks it
into place. Renee's original animatron presses a button, and the
blade is reconnected. The flesh-bot rests on the ground in the
corner, damaged badly, dripping, unpiloted. A new animatron, adult
female, sits in a docking station. This animatron belongs to some
inhabitant of Solipsis, but not Renee. The brunette animatron comes
to life, extending its legs and lifting out of the port. Its eyes
meet those of the redheaded animatron that looks like Renee.

“
Let's
go,” Renee says. They head for the door. The brunette rubs the
flesh-bot's head, thanking it. “So what happened? Last thing I
remember, we were about to start surgery.”

“
And
then Paul unplugged you,” the brunette says. “Are you
sure this is the closest body you could get? I feel kind of clumsy.”

“
The
skeletal system is identical, those things only come in so many
sizes,” Renee-bot says.

“
So
why does it feel weird to me?” the brunette asks.

“
You
got used to that flesh-bot.”

They
enter the VR, finding Seth right where they left him.

“
Well,
let's get to work.”

The
twin animatrons sit on the white tile floor. The vivisection room is
bloodied, dirty. Seth's body has been reduced to tiny pieces residing
in surgical waste bags stacked in the corner. His brain floats in a
vat of cerebro-spinal fluid. A small screen at the bottom shows
Seth's brain activity. He's unconscious.

“
So
is there even a
real
one?”
The redhead asks.

“
We're
equally real,” the brunette replies.

“
We
didn't both grow up, one of us actually lived those memories. One of
us is delusional,” Renee-bot says, talking about herself.

“
It
doesn't matter,” the brunette replies. “You're just as
real as I am. I didn't live those childhood memories either.”

“
What
if we're dead?” Renee asks. “Think about it, you were
about to be killed, shot in the back, and then you have a near death
experience, but you're miraculously saved by a person who you didn't
even know existed, an impossible person, that saves you, then you
save the day, repeatedly, get the bad guy, save the boy, save the
girl, everything is wrapped up in a neat bow. Don't you think that's
all just a little convenient?”

“
So
I'm dead? How am I imagining all this?”

“
Maybe
you're not dead, maybe this is still part of the near death
experience. It seems like hours, maybe it's only been half a second.”

“
I
don't think so,” the brunette replies.

“
I
know it's not true because I exist. I think therefore I am. Which
means there's a copy of you, and how would I be thinking if I didn't
really exist?” Renee-bot asks. “But,
you
can't be sure that I exist. You can only be sure that you exist.”

“
Maybe
we were never in the real world at all. What if they're test driving
AIs, putting us into ethical and moral dilemmas. It's just a game,
refining our logic algorithms, seeing how we act. It's all part of a
project to create super weapons for the military,” the brunette
suggests.

“
I
think I've seen that movie,” Renee-bot replies, “or maybe
I'm god and the universe is just my imagination.”

“
I
thought I was dead and then a Deus Ex Machina miraculously saved me.
So either I'm god, or god likes me,” the brunette replies.

“
What
was
the Deus Ex Machina? Oh right, it was
me
,”
Renee-bot replies, “
I'm
the god machine.”

“
What
if there aren't two of us? I just went nuts and got a second
personality to talk to.”

“
I've
seen that movie too.”

“
Really,
the only thing you can be sure of is that you exist, and nothing
else.”

“
But
really, what if this isn't real?”

“
You
can't know if it is. So what difference does it make?”

“
It
makes a difference.”

“
Why?
If you can experience something and there is absolutely no way to
tell if it is real or not, then the question is moot. Suppose there's
one universe where this did all really happen, and one where it
didn't, but you think it did. The experience of those two versions of
you would be identical, so it makes no difference if it really
happened or not. We're nothing but conscious experience, in the
moment, nothing else.”

“
I
think my brain's going to implode. I need a drink.”

“
I
need to get laid.”

“
You
do need to get laid.”

“
Is
that so much to ask?”

“
Absolutely
not.”

“
We
could do it.”

“
I
call shotgun.”

“
Shotgun?!”

“
Yeah.
I'll be the guy.”

“
Don't
you think that would be a little weird?”